HST will create 1,250 new "no good bastards" in Ontario

The Harper/McGuinty HST will save CORPORATIONS in BC and Ontario $8 billion a year in taxes, at the expense of CONSUMERS and will drive a huge underground economy, along with transforming 1,250 Ontario government workers into “no good bastards” (the term recently coined by the Harper government to describe those who are out of work).

I’d like to see a list of which companies are the beneficiaries of this scandalous tax policy. No doubt, the Banks are at the top of that list along with a lot of other businesses that simply act as “toll road” collectors on the residents of Ontario and BC, and for whom leaving these two provinces would mean leaving the VERY source of their business revenues behind.

So why are they getting a corporate tax break? They have no choice but to invest in Ontario and BC, as that is where their “toll road” equivalent businesses are based. Speaking of toll roads, are the foreign owners of the 407 getting this tax break? Does Dalton McGuinty think there is some risk that the owners of the 407 might pick up the road and mover it to some other jurisdiction?

It is for this reason, that all the professed benefits of the HST are illusory, as reducing corporate taxes will do nothing to effect the investment that these businesses that are captive to Ontario and BC will make. However they WILL get their unfair share of this $8 billion windfall that is being totally “underwritten” by consumers in these two provinces.

The effectiveness of the HST in promoting business investment in Ontario and BC be about as effective as the Hone Renovation Tax Credit would have been if the program gave $1,350 to every homeowner IRRESPECTIVE of whether the homeowner spent $11,000 on qualified renovations or not. As such, the HST is like saying to Corporations in BC and Ontario: “Here’s $8 billion. Do whatever the hell you want with it”. Is that smart government? Is that an efficient allocation of lost tax revenue? Not a chance. The HST is a holus bolus and mindless approach to tax policy and economic incentives.

What does Dalton McGuinty have to say about that?. Better yet, what does Ed Clark, the CEO of TD Bank have to say about that, as Dalton was merely Ed Clark’s front man for hoisting this tax on to Ontario residents and reducing the purchasing power of their hard earned money and burdening their investment savings with a new tax at a time when retirement savings are supposed to be a matter of grave public concern?


Premier dares Tories to say whether they'd repeal HST

Embrace it or erase it: That's the ultimatum Dalton McGuinty gave to rival Tim Hudak after the Progressive Conservative leader called the premier "increasingly slippery" in answering questions on the 13 per cent harmonized sales tax.

"I think Ontarians would be interested in knowing why it is that the leader of the Official Opposition is not prepared to repeal the HST," McGuinty said on Tuesday.
He challenged Hudak to write his former colleague, federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, asking him to "put a stop" to the HST, which the federal government is advocating.

Flaherty, a former Ontario finance minister and the husband of Hudak's deputy leader Christine Elliott (Whitby-Oshawa), calls the tax "good economy policy."

But Hudak would not take aim at Ottawa. "Our fight is here," he told reporters, repeatedly evading questions as to what a provincial Conservative government would do about the tax if elected in the provincial election in 23 months.

On Monday, Hudak led his MPPs out of the Legislature to protest McGuinty's refusal to hold public hearings on the tax, which will blend the 8 per cent provincial sales tax with the 5 per cent federal GST.

2009 Darwin Awards. Flaherty is a runner up!

Yes, it's that magical time of year again when the Darwin Awards are bestowed, honoring the LEAST EVOLVED among us.

Here is the glorious winner:

1. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer... $15. [If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime committed?]


And now, the honorable mentions:

2. The Finance Minister of Canada campaigned on a promise that he would never tax income trusts. Nine months later after intense lobbying by the insurance industry who wanted to eliminate their competition, he taxed income trusts, claiming that income trusts result in lost taxes to the government of $500 million a year. Not only did he leave out 38% of the taxes in his analysis, which would mean that there was no lost taxes, all of these trusts began to be taken over by foreigners and by non-taxable investors. Within a year, the Canadian government was losing over $1 billion a year, to solve an alleged $500 million problem, a problem that never existed in the first place? For that he was awarded Euromoney’s Finance Minister of the year award for 2009? Makes you wonder what the other Finance Minister must have done to be losers?

3. A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.

4. After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies.. The deception wasn't discovered for 3 days.

5. When his 38 caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in  Long Beach  , California  would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked.

6. An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.

7. Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly.. He decided that he'd just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape.

8. As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher. Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car and drove back to the store. The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied, "Yes, officer, that's her. That's the lady I stole the purse from."

9. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti , Michigan at 5 A.M., flashed a gun, and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast... The man, frustrated, walked away. [*A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER]

10. When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on a Seattle street, he got much more than he bargained for.. Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline, but he plugged his siphon hose into the motor home's sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges saying that it was the best laugh he'd ever had.


In the interest of bettering mankind, please share these with friends and family....unless of course one of these individuals by chance is a distant relative or long lost friend. In that case, be glad they are distant and hope they remain lost.


*** Remember.... They walk among us!!!***

Flaherty, McGuinty team up just as furor erupts over HST

KAREN HOWLETT
Globe and Mail

TORONTO — From Tuesday's Globe and Mail Published on Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009 12:00AM EST Last updated on Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009 3:30AM EST


Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has gone from denouncing Premier Dalton McGuinty's stewardship of the economy to supporting the Ontario government's ambition to transform the province into one of the world's top-10 financial centres over the past year.

Their friendlier relations were on display yesterday when Mr. Flaherty and Mr. McGuinty attended a blue-chip meeting of CEOs from Canada's biggest financial services companies in Toronto. But the meeting came on the same day debate in the provincial legislature almost ground to a halt over a pet policy of Mr. Flaherty's, highlighting differences between the federal Conservatives and their provincial cousins.

The McGuinty government is under attack by opposition members at Queen's Park over its plans to blend Ontario's 8-per-cent retail sales tax with the 5-per-cent federal goods and services tax - an initiative made possible with $4.3-billion in federal funding.

Ontario Progressive Conservative caucus members staged a protest over the proposed retail tax changes by walking out of Question Period en masse, just minutes into the one-hour debate, after Mr. McGuinty refused to hold public hearings. Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak yesterday accused the Premier of avoiding full public hearings across the province because he does not want to face consumers, who would end up paying the new tax on goods and services that are now exempt from the provincial levy.

"Sadly, we see a Premier ... who hangs out with the elite and won't listen to hard-working taxpayers," Mr. Hudak said in Question Period. "If he has that kind of contempt for taxpayers, I see no point in continuing with Question Period today," he said, and left.

It was Mr. Flaherty who began pushing the Premier to adopt harmonization when the Conservatives came to power in 2006. He also called on the Ontario government to lower its corporate tax rates, at one point ridiculing the province as the last place anyone would want to invest.

The Ontario government announced in the budget last March that it had reached an accord with Ottawa to reform the province's retail sales taxes, effective next July 1. The provincial Tories stepped up their attack last week after the government introduced legislation on the harmonized tax, which is now in second reading.

Everyone who works in the Ontario Legislature (including reporters) has endured the incessant ringing of bells meant to call MPPs into the chamber. But the Tories latest tactic was criticized by both the government and New Democratic Party Leader Andrea Horwath, who is also fighting the harmonized tax and who said MPPs need to be in the legislature to "hold the government's feet to the fire."

Mr. Flaherty has not gone out of his way recently to help Mr. McGuinty sell the harmonized tax in public. But an Ontario government source said the fact that Ottawa is providing financial aid attests to its support. He also said Liberals are comfortable with the way the public debate is unfolding, because it calls attention to the fact that the federal and provincial Tories are divided on the tax changes.

Mr. Flaherty was not available for comment following yesterday's first meeting of a new financial council that will look at creating more jobs in the banking and insurance sectors.

But Mr. McGuinty said it was a mistake for Mr. Hudak and his caucus to walk out. "Their responsibility in Question Period is to provoke, cajole, and highlight shortcomings in government policy and they should be there to do that."

Gerald Keddy: That "no good bastard" handing out Conservative logo cheques

I guess if you live in the fantasy world of self-importance occupied by CON MP Gerald Keddy, you are denigrated as being a ”no good bastard” if you are unwilling to work on his Christmas tree farm cutting down trees for seasonal employment at minimum wage.

Meanwhile this self righteous Gerald Keddy, is engaged in far more meaningful "work", as you may recall that he is same "no good bastard", who was gleefully handing out Canadian taxpayers' money, on the pretense that is actually money coming from the Conservative Party of Canada?

Speaking of work, this guy's a real piece of work himself. Surely there is someone better suited for his job than him? Perhaps ”Leona Helmsley?”


Tory MP derides jobless as 'no-good bastards'
MPs' comments on unemployed, abortion show party's 'meanness,' opposition critics say

Toronto Star
November 25, 2009


OTTAWA–Comments by Conservative MPs deriding homeless people and describing abortion as a procedure that makes women more available to men demonstrate the party's true colours, opposition critics say.

Nova Scotia Conservative MP Gerald Keddy has apologized for describing unemployed Nova Scotians as "those no-good bastards sitting on the sidewalk in Halifax that can't get work."

There has been no such apology from Saskatchewan MP Maurice Vellacott for his unflattering depiction of women seeking abortions, which also applauded Saskatoon doctors for restricting access to abortion services.

"Pro-life feminists have ... come to see abortion as part of a male agenda to have women more sexually available," said the controversial MP in an anti-abortion news release sent out Nov. 20.

Vellacott just this week had to apologize for a flyer wrongly accusing Nova Scotia NDP MP Peter Stoffer of supporting the long-gun registry.

Nova Scotia Liberal MP Scott Brison said Keddy's remarks reflect the kind of mean-spirited attitude that Canadians have come to expect from the Conservative government.

"This is from a Conservative party under Stephen Harper that has referred to Atlantic Canadians as being defeatist," he told reporters.

"This Conservative party has a deep vein of meanness to it. It's a party that kicks people when they are down," he said.

Winnipeg Liberal MP Anita Neville said Vellacott has proven time and again that he has a "very right-wing, somewhat Neanderthal agenda."

"It's an insult to women in this country," Neville said. "It gives me great fear should they ever have a majority government," she told reporters.

If only Bob Rae were this passionate about Harper's income trust scandal

Liberal Foreign Affairs Critic Bob Rae is quoted in a Liberal Press Release of today, as saying:

“Just as the Prime Minister hides behind photo-ops instead of taking questions in Parliament, his government is hiding behind the veil of national security to save itself from scrutiny,”. “If they have nothing to hide, then release the evidence and the public can decide.”

Harper withheld his “proof” of tax leakage from public view citing the same lame argument about National Security. I have yet to hear Bob Rae say a single word about that? Would that have anything to do with the fact that his brother, John Rae, works for Power Corporation and Power Corporation lobbied extensively to kill income trusts?

Why the double standard on disclosure, Mr. Rae? Is losing $35 billion of Canadians life savings based on a patent falsehood (ie tax leakage) acceptable in the way that Afghan detainee torture is not? How about defending the rights of Canadians here at home as well as foreigners abroad, Mr. Rae? Or are you more beholding to the Desmarais’s than you are the average Joe Blow on the street.?

Why is this concept of yours applied selectively? Concepts that are only applied selectively aren’t principles, they are excuses. What is your excuse?

“If they have nothing to hide, then release the evidence and the public can decide.”

Why are the Liberals allowing Harper to get away with his income trust fraud?

Who do the Liberals actually represent? Canadians-at-large or closely-held commercial interests?

The Globe’s Eric Reguly fell for Flaherty's same trick

In my previous posting entitled Flaherty pulled the same trick, I describe how Flaherty arranged to testify before Parliament on the matter of income trusts ahead of all the other witnesses and before all the facts were on the table. This is a deliberate tactic now being used by David Mulroney in the matter of the Afghan detainee torture investigation: Provide pre-emptive testimony to gain the higher ground and seize the public record.

Guess what? It often works with the gullible and malleable Canadian media.

Just look at the story that Eric Reguly of the Globe published in the immediate aftermath of Flaherty’s testimony on January 1, 2007 entitled: “Trust lobby had no hope against Flaherty”.

For heaven’s sake, this piece was printed in the Globe's February 1, 2007 paper and held itself out as being the definitive account of the Public Hearings on Income Trusts.

One problem with that however is the fact that there were 2 days of hearings, January 30 AND February 1. Eric Reguly was off writing stories and reaching premature conclusions before all the testimony had been provided. What kind of yellow journalism is that? Or is it merely the journalism of someone easily manipulated? Probably both. The most damning testimony was about to be delivered by the person who knows as much if not more about tax leakage than Flaherty himself or any person in the Department of Finance, namely Dennis Bruce of HLB Decision Economics . Think of Dennis Bruce as the Richard Colvin of tax leakage. And yet, here we have Eric Reguly filing his premature account of the two day public hearings as if they had ended, when they clearly had not, and before the star witness had even testified

Talk about a rush to judgment. Trust lobby had no hope against Flaherty? Yes, especially with people like Eric Reguly and the Globe so compliantly in Flaherty’s control.

And how do you suppose Eric Reguly’s premature piece ended? His piece ended with the following advice concerning the opponents to Flaherty’s trust policy: “They should be ignored”.

Well isn’t that nice? Advice from the Globe and Mail that the other side of a “debated” should be ignored, published the very day before they were about to testify before Parliament? You’d almost think the Globe had an agenda on this policy, which clearly they do. What’s the next piece of advice we can expect from Eric Reguly and the Globe? That books should be burned? Or just people’s life savings?

Eric Reguly would soon experience his fall from grace.....or should I say fall from pomposity and presumptuousness?

The real world (the one not occupied by Eric Reguly) soon outted the false conclusions reached by Eric Reguly and Flaherty’s so far successful efforts to manipulate the media, because it wasn’t a short two months later when the deluge of takeovers of trusts began to occur ( as predicted by many, but dismissed by Reguly) that Eric Reguly had the temerity to conclude that “these takeovers are a disaster for Canada’s Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty”.

Gee, what an epiphany.

It’s too bad that Eric Reguly didn’t have the balls to actually write about that “disaster” in the Globe rather than merely musing about it on the seldom watched BNN. But to do so would refute all of Eric’s previous vapid musings on income trusts. Refuting one’s own vapid musings of the past would take a degree of professional integrity that evidently is completely lacking in Eric Reguly and the Globe’s grossly biased news coverage of the Income Trust tax.

Had Eric Reguly not rushed to judgment on the Public Hearings on Income Trusts and IF he had stuck around to hear all the testimony, he could have avoided himself a lot of embarrassment and have actually performed his professional duties as a journalist. Instead he chose to be a mouth piece for the government and make conclusions that were favorable to the government before all the testimony had been delivered. Eric Reguly sought to be pre-emptive of people’s testimony before Parliament. What a thug of democracy. Why did Eric Reguly not write about this testimony that was presented in day 2 of the hearings by Dennis Brice and others, as it would have avoided him the professional embarrassment of a few months later, to wit damning testimony like this. Or would that be balanced and objective reporting, something not tolerated in the Globe and Mail?

Independent economists discredit govt tax leakage claims

OTTAWA, Feb. 1, 2007 /CNW Telbec/ - In remarks delivered to the House of Commons Finance Committee Thursday, Dennis Bruce, Vice President of HLB Decision Economics Inc., provided data and supporting documentation to discredit the Department of Finance's tax leakage claims.

"The department is sharply overstating tax leakage," said Mr. Bruce, who added that there would be minimal costs associated with a 10 year phase-in of the new tax on income trust distribution payments.

HLB Decision Economics, an Ottawa-based independent consulting firm that provides analytical consulting services to industry and governments worldwide, has been working on behalf of the income trust sector to develop a comparative analysis of taxes generated under the income trust structure versus the corporate structure.

Mr. Bruce told committee members that his firm worked with the Department of Finance as it prepared the federal government's 2005 consultation paper on the tax effects of income trusts. Specifically, HLB was asked by the department to develop a common methodology and assumptions for deriving tax leakage estimates.

Mr. Bruce said that HLB and the Finance Department achieved consensus on the methodology with one exception - they disagreed on whether to include deferred taxes. Deferred taxes are derived from distributions, capital gains, and dividends received in tax exempt accounts. While they are not immediately taxable, they are taxable upon withdrawal from such accounts.

"The discussions that you are hearing about deferred taxes reflect confusion about budgeting convention versus policy analysis," said Mr. Bruce. "While federal budgeting is done on a current basis, federal policy analysis is done on a life-cycle basis. Accounting for the life-cycle effects of tax changes, namely deferred taxes, is appropriate in the consideration of tax policy."

Mr. Bruce went on to outline the factors that resulted in the differences between HLB's tax leakage estimates and the tax leakage figures put forward by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. These factors include:


1) The Department's assumed effective corporate tax rate for energy
trusts fails to reflect the reductions in the tax rates for resource
corporations from 2004 through 2006, from 27.12% to 24.12%. This
results in an overstatement of tax leakage of $84 million;

2) The Department's figure for income trust units held in tax exempt
accounts is overstated. Derived from data from surveys, Statistics
Canada, interviews and Scotia Capital Markets data, the percentage of
units held in tax exempt accounts is 31 percent, less than the
Department's 38 percent estimate. This results in an overstatement of
tax leakage of $125 million;

3) The value of deferred taxes is excluded from the Department of Finance
analysis. This results in an overstatement of tax leakage of
$80 million; and,

4) The Finance Department's atypical inclusion of the impact of limited
partnerships, which reduces the tax leakage to $45 million.

5) The impact of future legislated tax changes post 2010 has not been
accounted for. Doing so reduces the ongoing federal tax leakage after
2010 by $232 million.

Mr. Bruce stressed that the discrepancies between HLB and the Finance Department led his firm to conclude that the Finance Department is "sharply overstating tax leakage."

Specifically, HLB concluded that:

- Federal tax leakage for 2006 was $164 million, not the
half billion dollars stated by the Department; and,

- Ongoing tax leakage, post 2010, after taking into account legislated
tax changes, is $32 million per year, about five percent of the
Department's figures.

For further information: Dennis Bruce, Vice President, HDR - HLB Decision Economics Inc. (613) 234-0080; Cell: (709) 632-1708

Flaherty pulled the same trick

Flaherty was successful at pulling the same trick that Canada’s former Diplomat in Afghanistan. David Mulroney is now trying to pull, namely providing testimony to Parliament before all the facts are known.

It is a much simpler task to defend your self against an incomplete record than it is a complete record. In Flaherty’s case. he arranged for himself to be the first to testify before Parliament on the matter of income trusts and was therefore completely free to conjure up all sorts of fanciful numbers on alleged tax leakage.....with ZERO supporting evidence to support those claims. Flaherty got 45 minutes to speak. All the other witnesses got 5 minutes.

Being the first to testify meant that Flaherty was long gone before groups like HLB Decision Economics, BMO Capital Markets. RBC Capital Markets. The Coalition of Energy Trusts, CAIF and CAITI testified that Flaherty’s tax leakage numbers were completely wrong and are premised on a totally erroneous methodology that was inconsistent with how the Government’s own books are supposed to be kept, according to the Auditor General.

By that point the coward, known as Jim Flaherty had long since vanished from the scene and all the reporters had run off with their latest Jim Flaherty sound bites and catastrophic predictions of tax leakage with which to mislead the Canadian public and foster Flaherty’s conspiracy known as tax leakage, as justification for a policy with sinister ulterior motives at play.

Now we have David Mulroney anxious to get before Parliament to “correct the record” before the record is even known? Sounds like a page taken from the books on How to BS Parliament by Jim Flaherty

There must be something about Irish men who think they can bluff their way through matters of import and contrive circumstances that favour their testimony......Jimmy Flaherty......and now David Mulroney?


Opposition aims to block diplomat's testimony on detainee case

Steven Chase and Campbell Clark
Globe and Mail
November 24, 2009

Ottawa — From Tuesday's Globe and Mail Published on Monday, Nov. 23, 2009 10:15PM EST Last updated on Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009 4:34AM EST

A high-ranking Canadian diplomat is jetting back from a Beijing posting to defend his record against allegations that Canada transferred prisoners to certain torture in Afghanistan – but opposition parties may not let him testify.

David Mulroney, currently Canada's ambassador to China, served as the government's point man and chief fixer on Afghanistan until May. He was singled out by Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin during explosive testimony last week as one of the senior officials who tried to contain and suppress his warnings about the torture of Afghan detainees in 2006 and early 2007.

But opposition parties are leery of giving Mr. Mulroney a public platform to beat back Mr. Colvin's charges before they have all the facts in hand.

The NDP, the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois are demanding the Tories release a long list of documents linked to Mr. Colvin's testimony before they allow Mr. Mulroney a public rejoinder. In a minority government, the opposition parties together have a majority of seats on a committee and can control its agenda if they work in concert.

Mr. Colvin reignited the long-simmering debate over Canada's handling of detainees when he told a parliamentary committee Nov. 18 that all prisoners captured by Canadian soldiers and handed over to Afghan authorities in 2006 and early 2007 were tortured – and that many were innocent.

Mr. Mulroney has sent a letter to the Commons committee on Afghanistan saying that he wants to “set the record straight” regarding “very serious allegations” made by Mr. Colvin. A career public servant, Mr. Mulroney served until May 2009 as deputy minister of Ottawa's task force on Afghanistan.

The Tories have been trying to arrange for Mr. Mulroney to testify this Thursday, hoping to get it out of the way before Prime Minister Stephen Harper flies to China next week for a groundbreaking official visit. Word that Canada's ambassador to China has been fingered in a cover-up of Afghan detainees has already made headlines there.

In an apparent indication of how he would challenge Mr. Colvin's testimony, Mr. Mulroney added that he “encouraged officials to report freely and honestly, while expecting them to meet the highest standards of accuracy, objectivity and professionalism.”

Mr. Mulroney also insisted in the letter to committee chair Rick Casson that Ottawa has been mindful of the possibility for abuse in Afghanistan.

“We have always recognized that that human rights situation in Afghanistan was cause for concern,” he wrote.

Mr. Mulroney will be arriving back in Ottawa late Tuesday night, officials said. As Canada's ambassador to China he's supposed to be devoting his time right now to laying the groundwork for Mr. Harper's official visit, which begins in Beijing Dec. 2.

Prime Minister's Office spokesman Dimitri Soudas accused opposition parties of playing games on detainees by blocking Mr. Mulroney.

“If the opposition were serious about finding answers, they would allow him to appear before the committee,” Mr. Soudas said.

Opposition MPs however say they can't properly question Mr. Mulroney without access to the uncensored versions of e-mails, briefing notes and memos that make up the background story behind Mr. Colvin's testimony. The Tories have already dismissed calls for a far more thorough public inquiry into detainees.

“We don't want to give Mr. Mulroney a microphone so he can say, ‘Here's the government's position.' We've heard the cassette,” Bloc defence critic Claude Bachand said.

Liberal MP Bryon Wilfert said each party only gets seven minutes per round of questions and answers at committee and that means they can't afford to be ill prepared in quizzing Mr. Mulroney.

The opposition request for uncensored documents is a very tall order. The Tory government has already fought several times against requests by groups such as Amnesty International to get unredacted versions of internal documents on the treatment of detainees. Ottawa has argued this would pose a security threat.

New Democrat foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar said the Conservatives have forced opposition parties into the position of delaying Mr. Mulroney's testimony in order to get documents because the government has rejected holding a public probe that might have produced them.

In the Commons, Defence Minister Peter MacKay offered a vague pledge to release information but suggested his motive would be to shed light on detainee transfers in Afghanistan under the former Liberal government.

“We will look at the documents that are going to be placed before the parliamentary committee, going back beyond the time that we took office. We will see what [the Liberal] government's record was and how it stacks up against the efforts that we have made to improve the conditions in prison,” Mr. MacKay said.

It was not clear just what documents Mr. MacKay was promising, but Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff immediately seized on it as a pledge.

Separately, the Canadian government said Monday it halted detainee transfers twice in 2009 because of concerns over the treatment of prisoners.

Mr. MacKay said the suspensions came after Afghan authorities failed to honour an agreement with Ottawa that gives Canada guaranteed access to prisons where detainees are being held.

“Most recently the reason that the transfers stopped was that the Afghan officials were not living up to ... expectations,” Mr. MacKay told the Commons.

Mr. Harper, briefly in Ottawa between trips to India and Trinidad, skipped yesterday's raucous Question Period – which was dominated by detainee questions – to instead pose for a photo with Canada's men's lacrosse team.

“It's significant that the prime minister was at a photo op a kind of a hop, skip and a jump from Parliament Hill instead of being in the House responding to questions that Canadians want answered because they're questions about his leadership,” Mr. Ignatieff said.